Philip, the Last Sweet Potato: A Non-Binary Quarantine Love Story from Beloved Children’s Book Author and Illustrator Sophie Blackall
Self-Inflating Airplane Slide
Watching an airplane recycling company employee having to activate a detached emergency slide was surprisingly amusing.
Here’s a video of an airplane slide inflating while still attached to a plane.
My Kids Love Blinks
Two weeks ago my kids discovered Blinks. The initial excitement was big. And continues. I am in the stage of parenting where I never know what will be a hit with my kids – Blinks is a definite winner.
It too *me* a moment to wrap my head around the idea of Blinks as it is like nothing I have ever seen. My kids of course picked it all up way faster than me. I would describe Blinks as a table-top game from the future.
Each ‘Blink Node’ represents one game and if you decide to play it, it tells the other pieces to get on board and programs them to do so. It all feels quite magical. So, basically, you have multiple board games at your fingertips, and as you add more blinks over time (they continuously come out with new ones) your game library expands.
We have the Combo Set and have had so much fun discovering the various games you can play. My kids definitely love Wham and speed racer. My favorite is Puzzle 101.
We haven’t mastered all of them yet, as some of them seem more complex than others. I am thankful for the instructional videos. Show me and I understand. Whenever I have to read game instructions I am lost. Visual learner anyone else?
Anyhow, if you’re going stir crazy at home and want your kids to be entertained and challenged, I can’t recommend Blinks enough.
I got to video-chat-meet the founder Jon Bobrow. He was so kind to give my kids a little intro to Blinks. They loved it and him. What a joy to learn that the people behind the products you love are kind, generous humans. Jon is one of them.
Jon does live-streams on how to play with Blinks at home on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Here’s one.
And here’s the video we watched once we first got our Blinks:
Consider me and my kids a fan.
Baratunde interviews JR
Thank you Baratunde for sharing your full interview with the remarkable JR.
Fun fact: Baratunde used to live across the street from me and when he moved out he gifted me his fancy waffle iron. Now, every time I make waffles for my kids we scream #waffletunde. Sometimes I even photo-tweet the results at him. It’s the little things.
Free Template to Create Your Own Face Shield
Face shields are typically made with multiple parts and are difficult to create and assemble at home. But Tokujin Yoshioka’s brilliant idea simplifies the design greatly, allowing it to be held in place with ordinary eyewear. Read more.
Radio Garden
Radio Garden is an incredibly delightful website: It presents you with a spinnable globe of the Earth, with each green dot representing a radio station. Rotate the globe, click a dot and you are suddenly listening to live radio in that part of the world. I am currently listening to a station in WeeWaa, Australia. I love the internet!
(via Recommendo)
Would you call your kid Omelette?
Which word do you think would make a pretty baby name if it didn’t mean what it meant? I’m going with Omelette.
— Sara Gibbs (@Sara_Rose_G) April 14, 2020
This Twitter thread is giving me life.
Brutalist Sandcastles
Calvin Seibert builds brutalist sandcastles. They make me want to drive to a beach and start building. Mad respect.
(via Kai)
Period of Hibernation
“We talk about this lockdown as a period of hibernation, as being dormant. But perhaps we’ve never been more woke than right now, more cognizant of a system that normally keeps us too busy to demand better.”
– Kai
♥ / Float: Plan Your Team’s Time, From Anywhere
A big thank you to Float for sponsoring my blog this week.
For teams that have suddenly found themselves working apart, Float is a collaborative resource management tool to plan your projects and schedule tasks, in real time.
With Float you can:
– Visually plan your resources in an easy to use, drag-and-drop interface
– Manage your team capacity by setting custom work hours, schedule time off/public holidays, and set status updates to let everyone know who’s working from where
– Make changes on the fly with handy right-click shortcuts and powerful editing tools
– Notify your team of schedule updates via Slack, email, or mobile push notifications
– Add a project budget to forecast hours and monitor your team’s progress
Sign up for a free 30 day trial at Float.com.
Pitcher
There is a pandemic happening in the world and I am posting about a good looking pitcher. Is everything weird now?
Accepting Love
“I have a theory—based on my experience interviewing thousands of people—that we humans are able to achieve wholeness and well-being in direct proportion to how we receive love. Not how the love is given, but how we are able to process and accept it.”
“I believe love when it comes in. It’s one of the most profound revelations I’ve ever heard. Love is all around, showing up in small offerings and dramatic encounters and everyday gestures. But we can’t receive it if we’re fixated on finding it in a package called “parent” or “husband” or “lover”—whatever label fits the story you’ve told yourself.”
How Oprah Taught Her Daughters From South Africa to Accept Love
The Root Of Suffering
“The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.”
— Ram Dass
Bodega Cats
This Twitter account collects photos of cats in small shops looking like they own the place. Love it.
(via)
Link Pack
This made me laugh.
– This is cute: Rainbow shaped beach towel.
– Secretly dreaming of this setup: Using a DSLR as a Webcam (via)
– Care Package | Poems, meditations, films, and other cultural nutrients for times like this, curated with love by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.
– Funeral and End of Life Planning (via)
– 25 things we’ve implemented at Front to keep a great culture while being remote: Skincare Fridays made me laugh. Scroll down for the photo of people on Zoom wearing beauty masks.
– 10 Famous Siblings Who Conquered the World
– Zach Lieberman and WeTransfer launch in-browser painting canvas, Color Push
– Can’t pay rent because of the coronavirus? This site is supposed to help you explain your rights to your landlord. SixFifty also released a similar tool for homeowners to generate letters to their mortgage lenders.
– OMG! Getty Museum asks people in self-isolation to recreate classic artworks
– I love this minimal salt vessel.
– I love my friend Libby: I’ve walked the circumference of the earth—here’s what it taught me about creativity in quarantine
– Ai-jen Poo | This Is Our (Caring) Revolution
– This Cook’s Book Kitchen Scale is cute.
– I think at this point everyone in New York State has a little bit of a crush on Andrew Cuomo.
– Face Mask Aid NYC is a collective of fashion industry volunteers collaborating to deliver face masks to essential workers on the frontline as quickly as they can sew them. My team member Julie signed up and they dropped off a box of pre-cut materials and instructions. Then, she will sew the masks and they’ll pick up and distribute to frontline workers who need them. Wonderful.
– Tattly is hurting really bad. If you ever wanted to buy some tattoos, this would be a good time. A generous cut of every sale goes to the artist. Fun fact: I am fulfilling the orders personally.
– CreativeMornings is going digital. You can attend the free chapter events around the world or participate in free “FieldTrips“, workshops led by community members like yourself. And, our job board lets you find your new dream job or talent.
– A big thank you to Peculiar Prompts for sponsoring my blog and RSS feed this week. Looking for a way to stay busy while stuck alone at home? You’re in luck! Peculiar Prompts: Social Distancing Edition is a free collection of 624 creative prompts designed to break the rhythm of an otherwise mundane existence.
Artist Puzzle
I am feeling equally uncomfortable looking at this as I am intrigued by it. This is a limited edition 500 piece puzzle by Alma Haser. Alma photographed sets of identical twins and made them into identical jigsaw puzzles. She then swaps every other piece of their puzzles, completely mixing them half and half. Not always knowing where their eyes, mouths and lips would end up, the result is a pair of eerie, unrecognisable portraits. No longer seen as completely identical, they are unique.
Together Apart
Priya Parker launched a podcast, Together Apart, in collaboration with The New York Times. If there is one voice I want to hear from, about the meaning of gathering in this unusual time, it is Priya.
About this episode: A woman who has been gathering for Passover Seder with over 40 people for 40 years wants to know how to celebrate digitally without losing the intimacy. Priya helps her design a meaningful digital gathering by exploring one of the most important questions from the Passover tradition — what makes this night different from all other nights?
If you haven’t read Priya’s book, The Art of Gathering, I highly recommend.
Help Your Senior Neighbors
Umbrella coordinates grocery delivery and medication pick up for seniors. They are looking for volunteers (especially in NJ and NY) who are willing to shop for elderly neighbors. I love everything about this! Sign up to volunteer.
The Truth
“When in doubt tell the truth.”
— Mark Twain
Animals Doing Things
This wholesome Instagram account is giving me live: Animals Doing Things.
A Loving Home
“A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.”
— Dalai Lama XIV
♥ / 624 Peculiar Prompts to Keep you Occupied at Home
A big thank you to Peculiar Prompts for sponsoring my blog and RSS feed this week.
Looking for a way to stay busy while stuck alone at home? You’re in luck! Peculiar Prompts: Social Distancing Edition is a free collection of 624 creative prompts designed to break the rhythm of an otherwise mundane existence. All of these prompts are designed to be done from the safety of your home, and with materials that can easily be found in your immediate vicinity. Some of the prompts are weird, others are really weird. Here’s a quick taste of what’s inside:
1. Invent a yoga pose. Name it.
2. Take note of how many circular things there are in your home.
3. Stare at your palm. Sketch the 5 most distinct lines you see in your palm. Use these lines as the basis of a rough sketch of your next home.
4. Make a didgeridoo. Play it.
5. Wear socks on your hands for one hour.
These prompts are available for immediate download on a pay-what-you-want basis (that means you can get them for free!), but if you donate $5 or more, the authors will email you a crappy drawing of something special to you. Just donate $5 at checkout and they’ll reach out within 24 hours to get started on your special request.
